Defending Communities Impacted by Pollution | view site

Lightray announces the launch of KennedyMadonna.com. Founded in 2000 by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Kevin J. Madonna, the firm specializes in representing communities that have been impacted by pollution. Lightray who developed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s website www.rfkjr.com in 2004 was tapped by the firm to promote their work and the hazards faced by countless communities around the country.

“Developing the Kennedy Madonna site required a different sensibility then most environmental advocacy sites we have done.” says Jessica Thompson, Lightray Creative Director. “Because of the sensitive nature of their work, the content and the imagery used needed to be restrained and carefully selected.”

Kennedy and Madonna LLP turns results in many groundbreaking cases. In 2007, Dupont was ordered to pay 196.2 million in punitive damages for deliberately dumping dangerous heavy metals on an industrial site, ending a complex trial involving property damage claims, long-term health screenings and corporate accountability. Check the site to stay up on their latest work.

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Defending the Environment, Democracy and The American Way | view site

Lightray launches RobertFKennedyJr.com,  in collaboration with the launch of Stopglobalwarming.org (also a Lightray designed site.) The new site acts to promote the causes that RFK Jr. tirelessly fights for, as well as his writing, multiple books, and affiliations. RFK Jr’s articles frequently appear in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Washington Post to name a few.

“Mr. Kennedy needed online platform for him to aggregate and promote his work and his message – in way that reached a main stream audience. says Jessica Thompson, Lightray Creative Director.  It was important that the design visually synthesize and emphasize the connection between environmentalism and Democratic values.”

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Have Your Voice Counted

Lightray launches the stopglobalwarming.org,  a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the risks of global warming in the form of a virtual march on Washington. The sites goal is to gain the support of millions of supporters across the US – who can turn around and with one voice urge  leaders to take action. The Stopglobalwarming campaign was spearheaded by a bi-partisan group of individuals lead by Laurie David, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Senator John McCain.

Lightray employed a number of innovative technologies in order to spread the word quickly and broadly. Subscribers or ‘marchers’ upon signing up received their own personal impact page – where they in turn could recruit new marchers. Individuals personal impact is tracked and compared to others. Marchers with the greatest reach are then featured on the Stopglobalwarming homepage. In addition to personal impact the spread from individual to individual is tracked showing how the message reaches person to person creating a visual like a family tree. Stopglobalwarming.org is one of the earliest examples using viral social networking as a key tool for grass roots organizing.

Stopglobalwarming.org supporters and partners include the NRDC, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Vice President Al Gore to name a few.

“Looking back, the SGW website when it launched was really on the cutting edge of viral technology. says Jessica Thompson Creative Director. Many of the concepts deployed strongly resemble what we now see in Facebook, and in the new era of Campaign organizing online.”

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Lightray was awarded the contract to overhaul the LAPD website and branding in a competitive bidding process.

SITUATION: The LAPD serves approximately 3.8 million residents in an area encompassing 467 square miles and 18 communities.  For the previous six years, a four officer unite had updated the website manually.  It had become 10,000 sprawling pages of non-database driven information.

SOLUTIONS: Lightray’s first step was to provide the department with a new look and feel to reflect Chief Bratton’s new leadership.  A visual audit, and branding analysis was conducted.  The results were a new logo, streamlined materials and a face-lift for the existing site within the first eight weeks of the project.

Simultaneously, Lightray performed a critical analysis of the existing content — of what should be most prominent, what would be updated most often, and how the language of the site could be translated from “cop talk” to the general public.  The online unit needed to be able to update the information easily without the need of a webmaster.

Since the LAPD serves such a large territory, there is a high risk of the public not feeling connected to the officers who serve them.  The site needed to emphasize neighborhoods, instead of divisions, so that visitors would have a direct connection and interest with how crime was impacting them directly, as well as how law enforcement was specifically serving them.  Lightray created a cross-relational database that would allow people to find their officers by looking up their neighborhood first.

RESULTS: The visual refresh was a tremendous success, doubling traffic within the first year.
CRIME STATISTICS

Previously, crime statistics were relayed via COMPSTAT, a spreadsheet familiar to the department but not easily interpreted by a public unfamiliar with the system.  It was clear that the key to getting people engaged in safety was to make them aware of crime.  It had to be easy to use and updated daily.  Visits to the site quadrupled after the crime maps launch.  www.lapdcrimemaps.org

COMMUNITY POLICING
Lightray worked closely with division Captains to learn that officers wanted a way to easily email their constituents.  They were savvy enough to set up their own lists, but it was clear that they needed a department-wide solution that collected emails in one place and then segregated the addresses according to the Senior Lead Officers that patrolled that neighborhood.

Lightray’s application requests that the user type in their address and zip code.  With this information, we were able to cross-reference their location with the corresponding patrol unit.  In the process, we built a simple step-by-step administrative newsletter tool that allows officers in every division to easily create and re-use templates, process crime alerts, work with existing divisional CAD units, and blast emails to the residents of their patrol area that sign up for the information.

Furthermore, the application can streamline efforts to deal with potential terrorist threats by allowing officers to communicate easily with groups of potential targets or key locations such as malls, hospitals or federal buildings.

CONVERGENCE
To maximize the success and effectiveness of this technology solution for the LAPD, we added an important user option.  At the moment a user is typing in an address to check out crime in his or her area, they may opt to receive an epolicing newsletter.

We look forward to sharing this wealth of knowledge and the tools we have created with other law-enforcement agencies.

Launch Site:

www.lapdcrimemaps.org

LOS ANGELES – Today the Los Angeles Police Department announced its new features on it’s website, including the introduction of satellite imagery in its popular CrimeMaps feature.

CrimeMaps allows users to view updated crime activity anywhere in the city. It is a part of a suite of applications created by ePolicing™, a partnership of Los Angeles firms Lightray Productions and Psomas. ePolicing™ specializes in web applications for Police Departments across the nation.

“CrimeMaps is consistently one of the most popular features on our website. said LAPD Chief William Bratton. “These latest upgrades are part of an ongoing effort to keep our site ahead of the curve in using technology to be transparent and communicate with the public.”

“Providing crime maps satellite imagery with recognizable landmarks take the maps out of the abstract and something relate citizens to.” said Kimberly Brooks, founder of Lightray and ePolicing™.

Users are also no longer required to input or know a specific address to view the maps. Users can simply drag and zoom into the area of the city they’re interested in to get more information. This marks ePolicing’s integration with the widely-used Google Software which will be available to all the departments ePolicing services. “These new ePolicing features represent continuing advancement of the ePolicing product suite providing better value and capabilities to our customers.” adds Craig Gooch, Vice President of Psomas.

This is an exciting upgrade for CrimeMaps, which was heralded by the LA Times, CNN, and MSNBC as the first of its kind in technology integration and ease of use when it launched in 2006.

Another new feature is LAPDTV.org, an expansion of the site’s capacity to offer videos. In addition to messages from the Chief, the LAPD will offer “Inside the LAPD,” a weekly television series carried and broadcast by LA Cityview 35, the official cable television channel for the City of Los Angeles. LAPDTV.org will also offer a section called “Solve a Crime,” where surveillance videos of crimes caught on tape can be viewed, allowing the public an opportunity to provide information that could lead to a suspect’s capture and arrest. “By employing Google’s video player, LAPDTV.org provides the videos on a system that many users are already familiar with and more universally accessible.” Added Brooks.

Lightray Creates Warner Music Group Artist Website Library. Designs Used for Artists of Different Genres in the US and Abroad.

Lightray was tapped by Warner Music Group (WMG)  to develop creative concepts for artist websites based on musical genre. The resulting designs showed multiple concepts for each genre using different artists. Lightray worked with WMG to establish the key components needed for an artist website such as music player, email collection, artist bio, and tour information. The resulting designs were then customized  to promote hundreds of artists internationally and in mulitple languages.

“The WMG artist project was dream job in that we could be totally creative and imaginative. says Jessica Thompson Lightray Creative Director. We explored everything from Hip Hop to Latin Rock, to Alternative, and Christian Rock, all the while considering iconography, history, and audience demographic. It was truly a blast.”

Below are some samples from the project.

Lightray designs and builds comprehensive technology solutions for one of the largest music companies in the world with over seventy eight labels in sixty countries, culminating a new design for the IPO of the business.

The project involved several large scale company wide projects which extended across the Warner Music Group both nationally and internationally.

WMG Global Site Creation:
Lightray collaborated with Warner Music staff to create a broadly used administrative tool that would allow employees at 78 labels in 68 countries to easily build websites and music players for their Artists. The project included the planning, design, and user interface for the admin tool as well as templates that could be customized for artists and translated into 5 languages.

WMG Corporate Website & Intranet:
Warner Music Group commissioned Lightray to design 3 co-branded sites that would reflect their broad roaster of ground breaking artists, creative excellence, and corporate vision. Lightray launched 3 consecutive sites: WMG.com, WarnerMusic.com, and company wide Intranet for staff to stay up to date on the latest news internally.

WMG Genre Templates:
Lightray designed templates for use in all different musical genres including: Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Alternative, Jazz, Classical, and World Music. The templates were designed to capture the aesthetic of each genre while also providing flexibility for Artists to have their own look and feel while fitting into an effective framework.

Warner Music Group Goes Public:

Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story on dvd

Warner Music Group under new leadership commissioned Lightray to redesign their corporate website in time for their IPO. Lightray worked closely with key management at WMG to create a look and feel that would present the company to new audience of future investors. The new site was a streamlined presentation of the Groups breadth, history, and diversity in the music business.

“Working with Warner Music Group so intimately over the course of several years has been exciting for Lightray. Allowing us to exercise our wildly creative muscles and our technological savvy. says Kimberly Brooks, Lightray CEO. The projects were pivotal to the trajectory of the company and Lightray is proud to have been at center of it.”

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The Original Girlfriend | view site

Lightray launches website and blog for acclaimed author Vicki Iovine and her series the Girlfriends’ Guide. Vicki has authored 5 best selling books, translated into 12 languages, as she guides her readers through pregnancy, surviving the first years of motherhood, dealing with toddles, and getting your groove back. In 2009 she began blogging weekly as a featured writer on the Huffington Post Living section. Her blogs span subject matters, from current events (which effect girlfriends) to raising teenagers (likely her next book), and they never fail to entertain.

“Vicki is the most wonderful client, she’s visionary, funny, and brilliant. says Jessica Thompson, Lightray Creative Director. We enjoys working with Vicki on an ongoing basis, and aim to help her bring her empire of Girlfriends online.”

Check out Girlfriendsguide.com for the latest blogs by Vicki Iovine.

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Contemporary Art  in the Heart of the Vibrant Culver City Art District in Los Angeles | view site

Lightray launches a new site for Taylor De Cordoba Gallery in Culver City, showcasing their artists, shows, press, and underscoring their place on the bleeding edge of the Los Angeles art scene. The new site was designed on the WordPress platform giving gallery staff an easy and efficient way to keep it up-to-date themselves. Lightray’s focus was to create a simple sleek design that would not compete with the artwork. A clean white background was selected to present a modern and restrained look.

“When we started the project our designers studied the look, feel, and structure of many other Gallery websites.” says Jessica Thompson Lightray Creative Director. “We choose to make everything but the Taylor De Cordoba brand, and the artwork, understated,  giving the site a gimmick free sophistication. From a programming side, we integrated gallery management applications into WordPress making it excessively easy for Gallerists to publish the work of new artists. So the back-end development was cost effective, and the result is a gorgeous and easy to update website”

To learn more about Taylor De Cordoba and to get on their mailing list go to www.taylordecordoba.com.

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Have Fun Storming the Castle! | view site

Lightray launches the long overdue Official Fan Site for The Princess Bride, a classic film loved by generations of fans. The new site features Photo Galleries, Discussion Board, Trivia, T-Shirts, Posters, Exclusive Content, and everything else you can dream up. Over the years a number of unofficial fan sites have sprung up, along with a healthy Facebook group, and active Twitter page. The new site hopes to bring all fans together to revel in the world of The Princess Bride.

“As huge fans of the film ourselves, we had to make sure that we captured the whimsical, witty, and fantastical nature of the film lore.” says Jessica Thompson Lightray Creative Director. “We choose to focus a lot of attention on the beloved characters and clever language that fans would immediately identify with.”

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